The Exmoor Forest Estate
THE EXMOOR FOREST ESTATE
The Exmoor Forest Estate is centered around the small village of Simonsbath in the heart of the Exmoor National Park. Originally a Royal hunting forest from Saxon times it encompassed some 20,000 acres of wild exposed moorland. An act of parliament in 1815 resulted in its enclosure and subsequent sale to the wealthy industrialist John Knight and his son Frederick who set about trying to reclaim and farm the moorland and mine for metals. Knight’s improvements included a sawmill, copper and iron ore mines, about fifteen farmsteads, a church, cottages for workers, land improvements, 22 miles of metalled roads and a 29 mile boundary wall.
Sadly the envisaged mining profits never materialised which led to most of the farms being let to generate income. This eventually led to the sale of the estate to Earl Fortescue in 1898. The Fortescues held the estate for almost 100 years but during that period large disposals were made due to death duties until, in 1995 the residue was sold to John Ewart from Northamptonshire who bought it mainly for the stag hunting.
The estate then totaled 5870 acres with the moorland now being rented from the Exmoor National Park Authority who had acquired the 3800 acres in 1992 with lottery heritage funding. I, Mark de Wynter-Smith came to work for John Ewart in early 1997 as Estate Manager and I have remained here since. The estate changed hands again in 2006 when it was sold to Dr The Hon Gilbert Greenall who owns it to this day.
The land is in a ring fence and rises from 1100 feet in the village to 1500 feet with all the inbye being permanent pasture of varying quality, interspersed with steep valleys. Rainfall averages between 80-90 inches a year, although over 100 inches has been recorded frequently.
The estate has been farmed organically since 2010. After being in various ESA, OHLS schemes over the years it is now in a Countryside Stewardship Scheme featuring species rich grassland with moorland peat restoration and rewetting. With the move to organic and the current schemes having a large emphasis on biodiversity, nature, landscape and restoration it has resulted in a drastic reduction in stocking rates from the days of headage payments. In those days, we were calving over 600 sucklers, all spring calving and lambing 5500 ewes with all replacements homebred, selling mainly suckled calves, store and breeding sheep, with nine staff.
The Galloway herd has a long history on the estate with records showing the original purchase of 10 heifers and 1 bull from Scotland in 1933/4 by the Fortescues. By 1939 the herd totaled 87 and has been around that number to the present day. They were kept pure for replacements and crossed to produce the Bluegreys for the suckler herd of the day right up until John Ewarts time, whose intention, sadly, was to replace them all with sucklers sourced from dairy herds. This process had started before I arrived but was delayed with the advent of BSE during which time I managed to persuade him not to go ahead. Instead, Angus and Saler bulls were used over the Galloways and Bluegreys for the resultant sucklers to produce the tighter skinned Charolais cross calves our local markets preferred. Salers were dropped after a few years and we now concentrate on Angus and Beef Shorthorn genetics in the commercial sucklers.
In 2008, although, always bred pure, we decided to start upgrading the Galloways to pedigree. To help this along we purchased a total of 34 pedigree females from a mixture of herds at the Castle Douglas spring sales of 2009/2010. These females have, over the years, had a huge impact on character and temperament within the herd. One cow in particular was Rose Hercules of Todstone, purchased in 2009 in calf to Penninghame Knight. She produced a fantastic bull calf which we went on to keep and use throughout the herd. His females had size, milk, great feet and legs, quiet temperament and full of breed character. Our current bulls are Ben Lomond Dalmore, purchased in 2021 who is breeding really well with us. Alcaraz of Fingland and Glenrath Razor purchased in 2024 have both worked well this summer and we are looking forward to calving spring 2025. Calves are weaned into yards in late Oct early Nov, weather depending. Once in they are fed baled haylage for a while and a 16% nut. Once settled after 5-6 weeks they are back clipped, fluke drenched and vaccinated with Rispoval P and moved over to clamp silage rather than haylage. Winters are long here and they will, along with all the calves from the commercial cows be in until the following May. They are housed again in their second winter but only fed on clamp silage. Weaned cows once dry are turned back to the moor for as long as possible before being brought back in ground and fed silage before calving in yards. With both herds being all spring calving from late march all our heifers are calved down at 3yrs of age which I feel gives us great longevity especially with the Galloways.
Just over 90 Galloways have gone to bull this year and we aim to push those numbers up in the future. The cross herd of 200 are a mixture of AAx and Beef Shorthorn cross cows which we cross breed to produce replacements. Charolais bulls are used on those not used for replacements. Both herds are closed with the only females brought in since 2002 being the 34 Galloways, breeding bulls being the exception. The commercial cows are housed in cubicles from weaning and fed clamp silage. The progeny from this herd are sold as forward stores at around 2yrs at Sedgemoor market, often achieving top prices. Any smaller steers and heifers are fattened with the Galloways and fed 14% nuts in the last 2-3 months before being killed under 30 months old. Our last load of Galloway steers were sent through Dunbia Cardington and averaged 336kgdw at 600p/kg with the AAx and BSHx on that load averaging 374kg at the same price. The pub in the village was also purchased recently by the Greenall family and the farm now supplies Galloway beef and Scotch Blackface hoggets for their restaurant. These are all slaughtered at our local small local abattoir in Combe Martin.
Breeding ewes total 1300 and are all Scotch Blackface. These are bred pure with tups purchased most years from the Lanark two day sale in October. Ewes not covered pure are put to crossing type Blue Faced Leicester tups with these ewe lambs run on and sold as 2T breeders at Blackmoor Gate Market. Lambing starts mid April with singles lambed outside and twins housed just for lambing. Ewes are tupped inground and later fed haylage and organic molasses as required until scanning in mid February. Once scanned singles are put to higher grazings and not supplementary fed to just maintain condition pre lambing. Twins are kept in ground and fed 18% rolls 5-6 weeks pre lambing. All wether lambs are fattened mainly off grass through ABP.
Ticks have been a problem over the years on the hill which is getting worse with the increasing red deer population bringing them inground. The loss of the louping ill vaccine has made some areas uneconomical to graze with sheep. With not being able to vaccinate all breeding cattle now we are forced to Dysect the cattle every 3-4 weeks while the bulls are out just to try and maintain the fertility levels we had with the use of the vaccine, not to mention the few cows and calves lost to tick. Hopefully a vaccine will be available again in the future.
Staff on the estate are myself, 1 Head Stockman, 1 Assistant Stockman and 1 Shepherd with 86 years of service here between us. Part time help is used as needed. A contractor is used for picking up and clamping silage with all mowing and baling done in house. We also try to bale 800-1200 bales of molinia and rush off the moorland each year for bedding which, when got good, gives a substantial cost saving over straw. This also improves the cut areas of molinia for grazing, nesting birds and to allow the establishment of finer plant species, all without the need for burning.
The Galloways have thrived here for decades and are so suited to the low cost organic system we operate on the estate. I sincerely hope that they continue to contribute to the estate in the decades to come as much as they have in the past.
